


go home, or make a home

by Sorrel



Series: somewhere i have never travelled [1]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Excessive Gardening Metaphors, F/M, Families of Choice, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Starting Over, rule 63!Bilbo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-05 15:01:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11580468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sorrel/pseuds/Sorrel
Summary: Great deeds always seemed so muchcleanerin the storybooks, when one could transition from 'they won' right over to 'and they all lived happily ever after.'  No one ever talked about the calm after the storm, where you worked until you thought you'd drop and cried yourself to sleep every night, or how you could long for home until you were nearly sick with it.  No bard sang songs about how hard it could be to live with the consequences of your actions, or warned that even the sweetest of victories could taste like so much ash in your mouth.Bryony Baggins has had more than had her fill of adventures.  She's riding back to the Shire to her books and her armchair, to dig in her garden and try to heal the tattered edges of her spirit, and though she will of course miss all her dear friends terribly, there's just not enough reasons for her to stay, and far too many calling her home.Unless...





	go home, or make a home

**Author's Note:**

> I have, according to google docs, been working on this fic since summer of 2014. Which is a long-ass time. It's been heavily edited, and updated to fit better with Battle of Five Armies since that's come out since, but the bones of the story I started while staring down the barrel of my last semester in grad school are still there.

_When you come back, return the way you came._  
_Favors will be returned, debts be repaid._  
_Do not forget your manners._  
_Do not look back._  
_Ride the wise eagle (you shall not fall)._  
_Ride the silver fish (you shall not drown)._  
_Ride the grey wolf (hold tightly to his fur)._

_There is a worm at the heart of the tower;_  
_that is why it will not stand._

_When you reach the little house,_  
_the place your journey started,_  
_you will recognize it, although it will seem_  
_much smaller than you remember._  
_Walk up the path, and through the garden_  
_gate you never saw before but once._

_And then go home._  
_Or make a home._  
_And rest._

-"Instructions," by Neil Gaiman.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Bryony Baggins was, in the general way of things, a gentlehobbit. The only daughter of the eminently respectable Bungo Baggins and the exceedingly beautiful Belladonna Took, the eldest and favorite of Old Took's three remarkable daughters, she was raised in wealth and comfort in the large hobbit-hole under the Hill that her father built to still her mother's wandering feet. Bree, as she was most commonly called, was much-loved by her parents and the Shire alike, being a charming, quick-witted lass with her mother's clever tongue and her father's sweet smile. She grew skilled with the cook-pot and moreso with a needle, and often her father would watch her working in the garden and puff comfortably on his pipe, and think fondly of the match he would make for his darling.

Unfortunately for Bungo's peace of mind, Bree inherited Belladonna's wild Tookish heart as well as her long golden curls, and she was barely out of leading-strings before she took to having long rambling trips around the countryside, sometimes gone for a day or more at a time. Her mother smiled and called her Bramble, for the scrapes she got into and out of, and though her father worried for how it would look to the neighbors, she was young enough that it wasn't yet considered odd to journey so often. Young hobbits were, after all, known to test their freedoms, before returning to the comforts of hearth and home. If she seemed less inclined to change her ways than most lasses her age, well, he knew what he was about, marrying a Took, and his lady wife wouldn't allow him to concern himself overmuch.

The years turned, and the suitors started to come to her father's door, for Bree was a handsome young woman, if a bit wild. They were fine young lads, from good families all, as Bungo would tolerate no less for his darling daughter—kind and clever and steadfast, worthy of the Baggins name and Took alike. And yet, she turned them all away. Oh, she was kind about it, for she was a kind-hearted creature by nature, and she gave them all their due: went berry-picking and shared picnics and danced with them at the village fair, but in the end she always smiled and told them no thank you, kind sir, and then she would pack her travelling-pack and leave for days at a time. Even her mother began to worry over her, but she seemed happy, and though all of Hobbiton twittered over her oddities, she was still much loved by her neighbors for her quick wit and kind ways. Her coming-of-age party was the grandest in Shire memory, and she gave out the most thoughtful presents, gifts accumulated over the years of her rambles. Many a matron came to talk comfortably of that Bryony Baggins, a sweet lass if a bit odd, and she was always one of their own.

And then, a few months after she turned thirty-five, her father caught a fever in the midst of the winter snows. He passed two weeks later, before the way could clear to get him to a doctor, and Belladonna fell into a deep mourning, for she'd loved her husband more than she'd loved adventure, in the end. Young Bree was at last forced to stay her wandering feet, for someone was needed to look after the family's fortunes, and there was some whispering that perhaps _now_ she'd take a husband, to manage the Baggins affairs. But time passed and she did no such thing, and, slowly but surely, she was considered Off the Shelf.

A lass of lesser standing might have been considered an Old Maid, left to care for her ailing mother and then shuffled off to a cousin to live out her days looking after someone else's children. But with the passing of her mother, Bryony Baggins was _the_ Baggins of Bag-End, and so she was wealthy enough to be called Eccentric, instead. She felt she was well-suited to it, with her wide rainbow skirts and her sweet rolling laugh and her love of good pipe-tobacco, and she aspired to be as her aunt Donnamira had been, respected by her neighbors and beloved by the neighbor's children. She hosted knitting circles and poetry readings, kept prize-winning tomatoes and drank in the taverns with farmers and merchants alike, and the Shire got quite used to having a resident Eccentric again.

This is where our story begins, many years into Bree's Eccentricity, where she had developed quite the respectable name for herself, all things considered. People nodded to her on the street, and called her Miss Baggins, or Miss Bryony if they were being familiar, and she threw extravagant birthday parties and kept the finest garden in all of Hobbiton. Someone of her standing would never have been allowed to work a farm, of course—it simply wasn't done!—but Miss Bryony was known for her love of green and growing things, almost as much as she loved telling stories. She frequently hosted hordes of young faunts for tea when watchful mothering eyes became tired in the afternoons, and she entertained them with tales of far-away places she'd never seen (and a few that didn't exist). Otherwise her afternoons were taken by her gardens, and in the mornings she liked to read, or write letters, or to sit outside on her front stoop with a pipe and say hello to passers-by.

It was on one such morning, particularly sunny and fine, when Bree was practicing blowing smoke-rings and thinking a little of weeding her tomatoes but mostly of nothing at all, when a stranger came striding up to her doorstep. He was a Man, lean of form and stooped of shoulder, with a long grey cloak that matched his long grey beard. He wore a pointed blue hat and enormous black boots, and carried with him a long staff, embellished with all sorts of carvings. Bree, who had a very nice walking stick of her own, studied the staff with interest, because she had never seen one so fine, nor one with such embellishments at the top. Why, it almost looked like a wizard's staff!

“Hullo there,” she said, feeling warm from the sun and full of good cheer, which was a good way to greet anyone, especially a stranger. “And a good morning to you.”

“I certainly hope so,” said the man, “though that is yet to be seen. Is this, or is this not The Hill that housed young Bryony Baggins?”

She could not restrain her laugh at his manner of speaking, though it was with delight rather than mockery. "Oh, but I haven't heard my name said such a way in an age, not since my mother passed. But if your quest is for Bryony Baggins," said, with a smile, in the long crisp Westron vowels used by her mother and the stranger alike, _brigh-oh-nee_ rather than the easy Hobbitish _bree-uh-nee,_ "then you need look no further, for I am Bryony, and Bryony is me!"

"Hmmph," said the man, but under his beard she could see the beginnings of a smile. "And so you are, young Baggins, so you are. If Bryony is not the name to use, is there another I should call you?"

"Bree is the name I use with my friends," she said, and arched an eyebrow at the man. "I'd like to count you among the number, stranger, if only you could give me your name in return."

"Hmmph!" he said again, with more vigor. "To think I should live to be called stranger by Belladonna Took's daughter, as if I were a tinker selling buttons at the door! You do know my name, young Baggins, though I doubt you remember that I belong to it. I am Gandalf."

"Gandalf, the wandering wizard!" Bree said, in no small astonishment. "Surely not the same Gandalf who used to make such excellent fireworks, and told such marvellous tales! Stars and stones, I had no idea you were still in business!"

"Where else would I be?" Gandalf inquired. "All the same, I am pleased to find that you remember something about me. I remembered you well enough, venturesome young faunt that you were, and I find myself in need of an adventurer."

"Ah, I'm afraid you're on the wrong doorstep, then, dear wizard," Bree said, and took a draught of her pipe. "My adventuring days are long behind me. I've been Eccentric for, oh, some ten years or more, now, and I'm well settled into it. I suggest you look down the river, for there's not much adventuring to be had here in the Shire."

"Should I?" the wizard inquired, with a twinkle in his eye she didn't quite trust. "Well, perhaps I should, at that. That does present me with quite a dilemma, however, as my other companions on this venture were instructed to me me here this evening, to pick you up for the journey."

"Terribly presumptuous of you," Bree said, with arched brows, but she wasn't truly angry. Such an invitation was unspeakable rudeness by any civilized measure, of course, but wizards and such of the outside world often had different standards, or so all the stories said. "How frustrating to come all this way when I'm not to be joining them."

"I had hoped you would see it that way," Gandalf said, with an air of satisfaction she trusted even less. "This is likely to be their last chance for good meal before they depart for much colder and stranger parts of the world, and it would mean a great deal to me if you would consent to host them nonetheless."

"What a peculiar request!" she exclaimed. "It's true that I love guests, dear wizard, but I also generally prefer to know them _before_ they arrive." Then she considered the matter further. "Any friends of yours are likely to have a few worthy tales to pay their way, at least."

"I think," Gandalf said dryly, "they can manage that."

That decided her, for Bree did love stories. "Ah, well, nothing to be done about it, I suppose. I'll cook them a hearty meal as salve for my refusal, and some to take with them on the way for good measure. How many should I expect?"

"Thirteen," Gandalf said, still with that same damnable twinkle in his eyes. "Dwarves."

"Oh, good lord, this is why wizards are always trouble in all the stories," Bree groaned. "You're lucky my larder is stocked." And then she stood and shooed him off—quite rudely, but not undeserved, she thought. "Go on then, get out of here! It seems I have some cooking to do."

"I'll see you this evening then," Gandalf said, and strode nimbly off. She made a very rude gesture at his back that she hoped her neighbors couldn't see, and then went inside to prepare for a culinary onslaught.

An odd beginning, to be sure, but nevertheless, this was the start of the adventure of Bryony Baggins, burglar to the King Under the Mountain, hero of the Five Armies, barrel-rider, luck-wearer and ring-bearer. She didn't seem very heroic, grumbling her way back into her smial, but then, heroes rarely do, at the start of their tales. On that sunny morning, Bree could never have imagined the adventures that would lead her to the foot of Erebor, to the claws of the dragon, and to the tide of war. She was just a small, simple hobbit, preparing for unexpected company, unaware that her story was about to begin.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

And this is where the story of Bryony Baggins, intrepid adventurer, came to an end.

The battle was nine days past, and their entire company had survived—albeit narrowly, in some cases. Thorin was still lying abed, confined till the wound in his gut healed further, but the rest of the Company was preparing to attend a well-deserved celebration. They had made it, after and in spite of everything, made it to Erebor and reclaimed it as their home. With all of the problems that had followed, no one had yet had a chance to enjoy that victory, but they were taking the time now, and that meant that Bree’s work was done.

Fili and Kili came knocking a few hours before sunset, as they'd been wont to do for the last several days. In the immediate aftermath of the battle she had perhaps demonstrated a very slight habit of forgetting to eat, and so the boys had taken it upon themselves to track her down before every meal to kidnap her off and feed her. It made her heart feel a little overfull, that even with everything going on they never forgot one small hobbit that had, after all, stolen their very important family heirloom and betrayed them to the men of the Dale. Thorin had forgiven her, on his deathbed. She was still surprised, every time, that princes didn't seem to think that there was any need for forgiveness at all.

"Knock knock, you know what time it is," Kili said cheerfully, ducking through her open door without so much as a by-your-leave. Luckily for her, she'd heard the two of them coming from halfway down the hall, dwarven footsteps being not terribly quiet and Kili's half-dragging limp particularly distinct, and she managed to kick her half-filled pack under the bed and pull out the dress she'd been working on.

"You're about to see what a true dwarven feast looks like," Fili added, coming in behind his brother. "Supplies have finally come in from the Iron Hills, and we have food and ale a'plenty."

"I can't even begin to imagine," Bree said dryly, amused in spite of her grief. A part of her was a little regretful for the way that she was leaving, sneaking out before their big celebration, but she couldn't bear to say goodbye, not to her dwarves. Not to her family. "It sounds grand."

"It _is,_ " Kili said enthusiastically. He nudged up into her personal space, as much an interloper as his uncle ever was, and Fili crowded on her other side. "Bree, is that the dress we found for you?"

"Oh, that was from you?" It had been left on her bed, origins unknown, but wherever it was from, it had been preserved surprisingly well over the last sixty years. Apparently Erebor didn't suffer from moth infestations the way hobbit smials did. The dark blue velvet was of very fine material, and she'd worked on taking it in over the last couple days, a few minutes snatched here and there to sit in the weak winter sunshine and try to talk herself out of her decision. She hadn't been successful, but she'd at least gotten the dress to fit.

Now, she held up the dress to her frame, and both of them stepped back to better admire her work. "Yes, it's quite better fitting now, don't you think? I needed something to do with hands in the quiet times, the last few days. I'm not used to sitting still anymore."

"Oh, it looks great!" Kili enthused. Fili, quieter and more reserved since his close brush with death at Azog's hands, just gave her a small smile and an approving tip of his shoulder. "Mother would be impressed with what you did with it. She can't use a needle to save her life."

She gave him a narrow-eyed stare. "Kili. Did you just hand me off one of your mother's dresses without _asking?_ "

"Well, she's not here to ask, now, is she?" he said, logically enough. "And she'd be dead chuffed to see you in it, anyway. Wouldn't be right, you having to wear trousers all the time when we're not on the road anymore, and this way you'll be wearing royal blue."

She'd known that this shade was a favorite for Thorin and the brothers both, but she hadn't realized it was an official family color. It made her possession (and alteration!) of the garment even more inappropriate. She and Thorin parted well enough, when he was certain to die, but he hadn't sent for her since he woke up three days ago. After the promises she'd made at his deathbed… Well, she received _that_ message well enough, is all. Even a shabby hobbit from Bag-End knows well enough that she has no right to be wearing his family's colors.

"That doesn't make it right, Kili. Honestly, the pair of you!"

"He's not wrong," Fili added, unexpectedly. "Enthusiastic, but not wrong. We'll get something tailored by the coronation, of course, but we thought that you should have something nice in the meantime."

Her throat tightened, but she ignored it. She wasn't going to be here for coronation. Best to remember that, rather than bicker over things that didn't matter. "Then I'll simply say 'thank you,' and wear it with pride. If you want to see it tonight, however, you're going to have to go on ahead, and leave me to change, as I'm certainly not doing it with you here!"

Kili snickered. "Maker, can you imagine Uncle's face?" He nudged Fili with his elbow. "He'd get better faster just so he could get up and beat the stuffing out of us."

Their teasing had become familiar over the months since the Misty Mountains, as Thorin had abandoned any pretense of subtlety. But that was Before, and it hurt to hear now, when everything was so broken. "Enough, lads," she said, easily enough. She'd had a lot of practice laughing through a broken heart, and more in the last week than anyone should have to bear. Kili and Fili, at least, deserved her smiles, in these last moments she had to give them. "Go on down to the feast. I'll be down in an hour or so." That would be long enough to pack and get out, before they came looking for her once more. "And I'll be starving, so you'd best make sure there's some left for me!"

"I promise to protect your plate with my life," Kili said, pressing his hand over his heart and sketching an extravagant bow. She snorted, and he gave her a silly smile that flickered away into uncertainty. "If you don't show, I'll just come looking for you, you know."

_Oh, Kili, I'm sure you will,_ she thought, heartsick, and patted him on the shoulder. "Of course you will," she said. "But I'm not so easily lost."

"Just see that you remember it," Kili said, and gave her a wink before easing out of the door. Fili gave her a short nod, rueful and charming at once, and followed his brother out. She listened to their footsteps till they faded away down the hallway, and then she yanked out her traveling-pack once more.

She didn’t have very much to take with her, really, just the too-big clothes given to her by Bard and a replacement travel kit she'd scrounged in Laketown all those weeks ago, plus a few keepsakes she'd accumulated over her travels. Sting, of course, strapped to the side as Fili had taught her, to keep it in easy reach of her hand. The fine little pocket-knife from Bofur, the knitted gloves from Ori, the sturdy little seafoam pipe from Balin—small sweetheart treasures, meant to ensure her comfort in the Mountain, but equally useful on the road. A handful of coins, stamped with sharp angular dwarven letters she couldn't read, taken to help pay for food and supplies on the road home. Her new dress, a gift from the brothers with love, wrapped in oilcloth and folded carefully at the bottom of her pack to keep it safe on her long journey.

And, of course, her mithril shirt. It should likely be returned to the armory, she had no claim to it still, but surely no one would begrudge her the loss of one little hauberk, however silvered and fine. She was a burglar, after all—and she hadn't been able to bring herself to part from it, not since Thorin had given it to her. She could still remember how large he'd seemed before her, kingly in his golden plate with his crown on his brow, and how carefully he'd folded it over her head. How slowly he'd smoothed it into place over her thin linen shirt with sword-roughed hands, how stern his face had been, his stormy eyes gone gone molten with avarice-

Well. She would keep it, was all. She'd earned that much.

Little enough treasure, in the end—but more than dear enough for the likes of her. Anything else was no longer hers to claim. She had her memories, and those would have to be payment enough.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

She didn't try to sneak on her way out of the mountain, just shouldered her pack higher and strode out as if she had somewhere to be, nodding cordially to the handful of Dain's soldiers she passed in the halls. No one made note of her, and why would they? Everyone who'd mark her presence was supposed to be at the party in the Throne Room, feasting and celebrating the fact that they were alive and home at last. To everyone else in the mountain, she wasn't anyone very important after all.

Thus she didn't make note of the one lonely figure keeping watch near the gate, which was a mistake indeed, because Bofur was waiting for _her._

“You’re makin’ a habit of this, lass,” came a familiar voice right as she was trying to ease through the gate. She near about jumped out of her skin, but any annoyance she felt at being so startled was overshadowed by the fact that she’d gotten caught.

“And you’re making a habit of catching me, I suppose,” she said, to cover the beat of shame that she felt. “I guess I’m just not a very good burglar.”

“I think you’re well enough, as do quite a number of other dwarves in that mountain,” Bofur replied with raised eyebrows. “Twelve others, to be exact.”

She winced. “Eleven,” she corrected, though it hurt her heart to admit it. She'd spent the past two days waiting to hear from Thorin, to have a single word from his lips change her mind, but it hadn't come. Forgiveness was a lot easier to offer on death's door, she supposed, and much harder to live with when the years stretched on ahead.

“What’s that, now?”

“Eleven others think I’m well enough." She could handle this much better if Bofur didn’t look so _kind._ “One of them rather less so.”

“Lass, you can’t think that Thorin-”

“Think, no. Know, most certainly,” she retorted, then sighed. The last thing she wanted to do was to fight with Bofur. The princes she adored as if they were her own kin, and Thorin, well, best not to be thinking about Thorin now, but Bofur had become her truest and best friend on the road, and she didn’t want wounded feelings between them now. There had been enough of that, between all of them, to last several lifetimes. “Look, dear, it's time I be headed home. The caravan of elves is departing in the morning, and I’ve been invited to travel with them.”

“We know,” Bofur admitted. “That’s why the lads had the party tonight. They were hoping that you’d be too soused from the celebration to leave tomorrow.”

She found herself startled into laughter. “That’s-”

“Not their finest plan, aye, I know.” He pinned her with a beetle-browed stare. “None of them thought you might make a try at slippin’ off without even saying goodbye, though.”

“Except you.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time, now, would it?”

“That’s true enough.” She sighed and tucked her hands into her pockets, wishing ruefully she'd thought to use her ring for escape. She's been loath to use it for trivialities, Smaug's words ringing in her ears, but this once, she thinks she should have made an exception. “I truly think it’s better this way, Bofur, really. Make a clean break of it, let everyone get on with their lives. Perhaps we can exchange letters, if the trade routes stay clear. ”

“We were all thinkin’ you’d maybe stay here, lass. No goodbyes necessary.”

She closed her eyes against his hopeful smile, and even in the dark she could feel the watchful press of stone above and behind her. She'd journeyed through, oh, all sorts of things really, much of it terrible and frightening, and through it she'd been buoyed by that one glimpse of the Lonely Mountain from the top of the Carrock, the home at the end of her road for the dwarves who had become her dearest friends. In her mind it had built up to the grandest, most beautiful, most wondrous place imaginable, full of treasure certainly, but also vaulted marble ceilings and grand tapestries and marvellous ale-halls that would ring with laughter.

And now she walked through the halls she'd once sought so eagerly and could only think of madness, and betrayal, and death.

"I told you once, quite hurtfully as I recall, that you didn't belong anywhere. And I was wrong. _This_ is where you belong. I could see that, even then. So I made a promise to see you here, all the way to the end of the road."

The look on his face right then hurt her as almost nothing else could. "Bree-"

She couldn't let him interrupt, had to finish in case she never could. "And, oh, what a road it's been, dearest. I've faced hardships I never could have imagined, back in my comfortable little hobbit-hole, and seen things I think people might never believe."

"But you _got_ us here, Bree," Bofur said softly, _urgently_ into the space between her words. "We'd never have made it if it weren't for you, we'd be dead or lost or, or, _given up_. The others were faithless at the end, at the very door to Erebor. You got us in."

"I know," she said, "I know." And she found she could not continue.

Bofur, perhaps seeing his chance, stepped closer, till she could smell the familiar scent of him, tobacco and ale and cedar shavings. She'd slept at his back for so many cold nights on the road, and she couldn't step away from him now.

"You earned this home for us, Bree, a hundred times over. You've earned it for yourself. It wouldn't be the same for us, with you gone. It wouldn't be right without you."

"I know," she said, for a third time, but as she met his urgent gaze her words came back to her. "But I can't be right if I'm here."

He took a deep breath, but she kept talking, trying to make him understand. "It's a beautiful home, Bofur, truly it is. And it will be greater yet. But I can't stay here. I can't sleep without dreaming, and when I do I wake up sobbing. I feel _broken_ , and, and I long for home till I feel nearly _sick_ with it. I have to get out, Bofur. I can't stay here, or I might just…" Her throat clicked as she swallowed hard against her grief. "Fade away."

He swallowed, so painfully she could hear the click of his throat. "I'm sorry, lass," he said. "None of us ever wished this for you."

"Of course you didn't," she said. "But we don't always get what we want." She squeezed her eyes shut tight, only now aware of the tears leaking from the corners of her eyes, and looked down so she wouldn't have to meet his mournful gaze anymore. "Tell me you understand," she told his boots.

"I understand," he said, and his voice was heavy with grief. "We owe you more than we could ever repay, not with every scrap of gold in the mountain."

She laughed, a little wetly. "I'd never take it."

"And that's one of the many reasons we'd want to give it to you," Bofur assured her. "I know you've got to leave, but must you go without sayin' your goodbyes? The lads, especially, will be missin' you something fierce."

Slowly, she shook her head. "I can't bear it," she said, "truly, I can't. If I had to, I might never leave. Fili and Kili will be alright without me. We've made our peace, and I'll write when I can. They're good boys."

Bofur sighs and purses his lips. "His majesty will be well-nigh unbearable, then."

She surprised herself into another laugh. "Oh, lord, when isn't he, ever?" Thorin. She'd thought she'd set aside the grief of her infertility, years ago, but for Thorin she wished again that she could bear children. She would have something of his, if she could, to take with her to the rest of her lonely life, since she couldn't take his heart. "Thorin will be fine. He has his home and his crown, and his mind back as well. He might miss having me to shout at, but there's plenty other rows in that garden."

"He'll miss a great deal more than that," Bofur muttered darkly, but she just smiled at his silly lovable face and grabbed him in a sudden hug. "Oh!"

She pressed her smile against his chest and held him tight with all of her small hobbit-strength, and after a moment's hesitation, his arms came up around her to crush her to him. He was one of the leanest of the dwarves, her Bofur, but he still felt enormous to her, larger than life and so, so dear. "If I had to say goodbye to somebody, I'm glad it was you," she whispered in his ear, and then pressed a kiss against his whiskery cheek. "Good luck, and long life."

His arms flexed convulsively around her, and then she tore herself away, snatched up her pack, and disappeared into the darkness.

She slipped the ring onto her finger as she went, because she did try not to make the same mistakes twice, and stole invisible into the encampment of elves. She found her way to the horses, and stowed her pack near the pony that they had thoughtfully provided for her. The pony, who she decided to call Marigold, lipped affectionately at her fingers before Bree curled up near the tack and waited for morning.

At dawn, she saddled and mounted without assistance, her body still remembering the long weeks of practice on the road from the Shire. She nudged Marigold into the loose line of mounted elves, and there she stayed, a small, sad, figure riding away from Erebor.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Her adventure was over, now. But that didn't mean her story had ended.

She'd known, when she set out, that she might not return to Hobbiton at all, or if she did, that she would be a changed hobbit indeed. She hadn't known, for her previous small adventures and sorrows could not have prepared her, just how her losses would weight on her heart. She couldn't have known the way that the stone halls of Erebor, so desired by her companions, could feel like a tomb for her grief. She had not felt so when her dear father had died, or even when her mother had finally followed him into the grave, but now she felt as if her belly was full of hot lead, as if she was being torn in two.

She hadn't lied when she said she longed for home, but even so it was harder to picture her own hobbit-hole then she would have thought. When she was younger she had wanted nothing more than to see the world, then to return home to a husband and children of her own, as her mother had done before her, but she'd learned young that the family home would be her only legacy. Even that didn't seem comfort enough now, riding away from a battle she'd failed to prevent even with her betrayal, and she couldn't help but feel unmoored. Uprooted, with no legacy but death, when she'd never craved aught but life.

Little did she know it, but Bree was about to get a second chance to make her mark on the world, after all.

She wasn't thinking about any of that when she started her journey with the elves, however. She had every intention of riding with them as far as the Mirkwood, then parting ways and following Gandalf and Beorn north around the wood. They planned to winter there, and then travel on to Rivendell when the snows melted from the mountain pass, and then Bree would travel on to the Shire on her own, protected by her fine new walking-stick and the little elven sword she now called Sting. It was a good plan, and Bree thought of it often that first day, riding still in the shadow of the mountain, refusing to look back.

That plan did not last very long.

They camped the first night at the outer edge of the Dale where Laketown's refugees were beginning to trickle back out of the mountain, so that Thranduil might arrange the beginnings of trade with the hastily thrown-together Dalish Council. Bree had no place in such grand talks, and considerably less desire to face Bard without the buffer of finding space, food, and care for hundreds of wounded in Erebor's dusty front halls, so she slipped out of the camp at first light the next morning and took herself off to the healing-tents, where she could at least make some use of herself. She was no doctor, by any measure, but she could clean wounds and wrap bandages with the best of of them, and those well enough to leave Erebor's walls needed little else. Thus the morning passed, if not _pleasantly_ by any stretch of the imagination, at least peacefully. No one there seemed to know who she was, which was a relief, and at least she was being useful. Bree had found that she very much liked being useful, during the long journey with her company, and while her efforts here couldn't make up for her everything else, it was something, at least.

One of the doctors noticed her working well into the afternoon, however, and shooed her off to find some meal before she tired herself out. Thwarted, she wandered back to the elven encampment for her pack and scrounged up a few crusts of bread, then took her sword and her meal out to the edge of the town. She couldn't help but turn her gaze back through the ruins of Dale and the Lonely Mountain above it—lonely no more, she thought, and her heart hurt at the thought of her dwarves, home at last. They would have accepted her departure by now, she told herself, and none of them would have tried to follow her. Bofur would have made sure of that, dear friend that he was. She was sure that they would miss her as terribly as she missed them, but that would fade in time. She would write to them, when she was further along the road, and the thought of the mountain didn't leave her feeling like she had a stone in her belly. 

She'd write to most of them, she corrected herself, and that wound hurt afresh with every reminder. Thorin wouldn't want to hear from her any time soon. Perhaps she'd wait for one of the lads to tell her that his inevitable temper tantrum had faded, before she tried to put his name to paper. For all he'd clearly been done with her after he woke from his deathbed, he was almost certainly _freshly_ angry at her by now for taking off without his by-your-leave. Very fond of getting his own way, was Thorin, she thought, and smiled to herself in spite of her grief.

"It's a shame," a voice said beside her, and her hand went to her sword before she realized that the speaker was known to her. "Ah, I didn't mean to startle you," said Bard, for Bard it was, still in the same soot-smeared leathers he'd worn to Erebor's gates, several days of stubble darkening his chin and jaw and tired crow's-feet framing his dark eyes. No fine clothes nor bright jewels marked the newly crowned Lord of the Dale, but Bree thought she'd know him at a glance, even still. He wore his duty like a fine cloak across his shoulders—as Thorin had, even that very first night in her hall, when he'd thought her nothing more than a seamstress and she'd called him a mannerless savage for the privilege.

Bree let her hand drop away from Sting's hilt, trying to calm her racing heart. _Just your luck, to be found by the one man you'd best avoid._ "My Lord," she said, and went to curtsey, realizing only at the last minute that she hadn't worn skirts since Rivendell and aborting the gesture into a jerky, graceless bow instead. "I'm sorry, I didn't hear you approach."

He winced, almost like she'd struck him. "You don't need to bow to me, Bree."

Her breath caught in the back of her throat, and she cleared it roughly, feeling an awkward flush steal across her cheeks. She hadn't thought- Well. Nothing about this adventure had ever gone to her expectation, why should this be any different?

"You said something about a shame?" she inquired, clinging desperately to her Shire manners.

His keen gaze sliced at her for a moment more, and then he relented and nodded out over the long stretch of mostly-empty scrubland. It had been cleared of the remains of both their armies and orc-kind by now, their allies buried in state and the orcs pitched without ceremony back into the tunnels from whence they came, the mouths covered over by Dain's industrious soldiers. The dirt was still greatly churned in places, and the stench of death hung like a miasma over everything, but already the fresh mountain breezes were working to clear the air.

"This used to be the richest farmland east of the Misty Mountains. It supplied caravans all the way up to Iron Hills. Laketown's kept us and those elves fed by a few patches of land on the far shore, but this was the pride and glory of the Dale. Nothing but green fields, from the foot of the mountain all the way to the edge of the Greenwood." He shrugged, a small economical movement that had become familiar to her on the long trip across the lake weeks before. "We'll survive well enough on trade; we always have. But it's a shame about the farms."

She looked away from the uncomfortable slope of his shoulders and instead shielded her eyes to better see the land in front of her. "I suppose it could be brought back," she said, thoughtfully. "The soil would take some nourishing, and likely some different crops, but it could be built back up well enough."

"Kind of you to say," Bard replied, with a quirk of his mouth, "but dragonfire burns clean. Nothing will grow there but weeds."

Bree forgot her determination to say as little as possible and shook her head. "Dragonfire isn't any worse than a strong forest fire, and likely a great deal less fierce, at that," she explained. "The soil isn't ruined, just dormant. I doubt you could plant the same things as before and expect them to grow half so well, but the right plants can give enrichment back into the soil. I've seen lands swept clean by forest fire, and with the right planting, the earth grew back greener than ever. It could be done, if you've the knowledge of it."

Bard turned to look at her fully now, and she remembered she was supposed to be trying to avoid him. "Er."

"You seem to know a great deal about it all," Bard said, with a mildness she didn't trust. "Are you a masterfarmer, then, as well as a burglar?"

A laugh tickled free of her throat before she could choke it back. "I'm neither," she said, "just a Baggins, of Bag-End, with the finest garden in all of the Shire and more than a passing interest in how the food gets to my table." She shrugged and shoved her hands into her pockets, rubbing her thumb fretfully over the smooth outer curve of her ring. "I know a little more than some hobbits and a little less than others, but it's nothing you wouldn't hear over a pint of all at any inn in the Shire."

"It's still more than any man in that camp," Bard said wryly, eyeing her with new interest she _definitely_ didn't trust. "I've underestimated you, Mistress Baggins."

"It's a common mistake," she said airily, and darted her gaze to the side, considering escape. Bard wasn't quite the _last_ person she wanted to see right now, but he was quite low on the list, and she'd taken herself out of camp to _avoid_ this reckoning. "Terribly common, really, Big Folk tend to overlook hobbits, and that's just how we like it. Ah, I should probably be getting back to town, if I could beg your leave…"

"We could use someone with your talents," Bard continued, as if he hadn't heard her. "The Master of Farms perished in the fire, and there's none with the knowledge to replace him."

" _What?"_ Bree gaped up at him, truly surprised for perhaps the first time since Dwalin brought the news of Thorin's recovery. "You can't be serious."

"Do you know me to be the joking sort, Bryony Baggins?"

She recognized his smile—the same wry, wary little half-curve that had graced his lips when she'd approached him in the rear of his boat, giving him her name and asking for his in return, as her Company had been typically disinclined to courtesy. He'd introduced himself with a rueful grace, and finer manners than she'd expected to find in this unforgiving corner of the world, and she'd thought then that they could become fast friends, her and the ferryman, if only they had the time.

_Time enough to destroy all that he held dear,_ she thought, with a pang beneath her breast, and straightened, wrapping the dusty remains of her tattered dignity around her like a cloak. "I will be riding out with the elves on the morrow, my Lord-"

"Bree-"

" _My Lord,_ " she repeated, in the freezing tones that could silence even the most determined of gossips back in Hobbiton, "and not even to dispense a debt could you ask me otherwise. Is that clear?"

"Clear as a bell, Mistress Baggins," Bard said, his face retreating to a remote stillness she'd seen only once or twice, in the face of Thorin's arrogance. "I wouldn't dream of asking you more than you're willing to give."

_Oh,_ but that blade bit deep, as Bard must have known it would. He'd always been a clever one, with a quick mind and quicker tongue. If Thorin had been a shade less taken by the dragon-sickness, she thought Bard might have gotten through to him after all.

They'd never know, now.

"Ah, but I think I've done quite enough." She tipped back her chin and holding his gaze, though it cost her dearly to do it. "Don't you?"

He said nothing, his dark eyes burning with some great feeling she couldn't name, and after a moment, Bree nodded sharply to herself, then turned on her heel and walked away.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The next morning she awoke to find their departure delayed, and that she was no longer needed in the healing-tents, as they had caregivers aplenty. Frustrated, and not a little unused to being at loose ends, she wandered through the encampment for some hours before the guards started eyeing her meaningfully, presumably confusing her for some sort of slight, beardless dwarf. At that point, she judged it prudent to take herself out of the way.

She made her way to the rooftops—careful not to look down, as she climbed, as she'd found herself height-freighted the last few days, in a way she never was before. In the deep chasms of Erebor, where the depths stretched down beyond sight, she'd been too busy to fear, but out here under the sky, where she could see the ground below her-

Well. Her adventure had taken worse things from her, and she wasn't likely to need to climb very many trees, on her way back to the Shire.

Once she'd found a likely bit of roof that wasn't _too_ crumbled—once a tavern, she thought, though it was hard to tell when they all looked so much the same—she reached into her jacket pocket to fetch her pipe, intent on a bit of a smoke. Then she let it slide from her fingers a moment later, a short sigh escaping her lips, as she remembered once again that she was out of tobacco. Her half-full pouch of Old Toby had perished in the goblin caves with the rest of her things, and she hadn't thought to take with her any of the thin, bitter pipe-weed favored by the dwarves when she'd left the mountain.

Just as well, really. She'd never be able to so much as smell the stuff again without remembering the taste of it on Thorin's breath.

Annoyed all over again, she leaned back on her hands and stared up at the ruins of the Dale stretched out above her. She'd been in the towns and villages of Men, during her travels, but never a place so grand as this, for all its disrepair. _Do all men build their cities in stone?_ she wondered, a little amused, _or just the ones under the shadow of a dwarven fortress?_ If the Dalish lords of old were trying to ape their neighbors, they'd made a poor showing of it. Even a hobbit could see that the ruined city had once been magnificent, but it paled in comparison to the vaulted glory of Erebor's gates, even blackened and shattered as they'd been by Smaug's assault and Thorin's excavations.

Then her gaze was drawn north, to the frozen peak of Ravenhill, and she shuddered once before turning her back and looking out over the grassland, instead.

It really was a shame, she thought, eyeing a clump of particularly stubborn brush near the edge of the city. The ground was clearly capable of supporting life, though it'd be long years before she'd dare to grow wheat or grain this close to the mountain. There were other crops that could suit, though, sturdy things that could give life back into the soil and fill the bellies of the Dalish and the dwarves besides. Hobbits didn't rotate fields the way Big Folk did, as they hadn't the land to spare, and she knew it could be done. They'd have to send away for the seeds, likely, but already word has gone out to the Blue Mountains, and caravans of dwarves will be crossing all through the winter, called home to Erebor at last. There'd be seeds enough for planting when the spring came, and food enough for all by harvest time.

_If_ they had the knowledge of it.

And if they started soon. 

_It's none of your concern,_ she told herself. _Men tend their farms one way, and it's no business of any hobbit. You've done quite enough to these poor people already. They'll find a way on their own._

She stared out over the battlefield, trying to think of the rolling green fields of home. And yet the image lingering in her mind's eye was of the ground before her, bare churned mud greened with long marching rows of corn, tassels waving in the heavy summer sunshine. Pumpkin vines to cover the ground, she would think, and for the beans… lazy housewives, perhaps, or purple podders, but Bree had always favored the scarlet runner, for its height and its beautiful red blooms. Mountain-clover 'round the edges, of course, to draw the bees once the weather turned, and perhaps some sunflowers, for the seeds and for their friendly nodding faces. They'd need a beekeeper as well, to build the hives and pull the honey, and berry bushes, so as to have preserves during the winter months, and… 

Bree looked down at her feet, cursed, and went to find a pen and paper.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

It was well after dark when she emerged from her tent with a bundle of parchment clutched in her arms, but as Gandalf hadn't yet found his way to bed she thought it likely the Lord of the Dale hadn't either. Time enough, to do what needs doing.

The guard at the door found it very peculiar, however, and Bree found herself forced to explain her purpose fully three separate times. Finally, wishing she'd given in to her first instinct and used the ring to slink in as she'd done on the eve of battle, she told the man with some exasperation, "If you would but ask him, I think you'd find Lord Bard would want to see me, as I'll be leaving quite early in the morning and he'll have no other chance."

"If'n it'll shut your hole, dwarf-girl, aye, I'll ask him," the guard grumbled. "What'd you say your name was, again?" 

"Bryony Baggins," she said, choosing not to correct the man's assumption of her race. She was close enough in stature, if somewhat lacking in other departments. It'd only complicate the matter. "He'll know who I am."

"We'll see," he said darkly, and took himself away.

Bree leaned up against the wall to wait, clutching her papers and looking up at the sky. The stars looked the same here as they did from the roof of her smial, which was comforting, in an odd sort of way. Certainly she'd spent many a night since leaving her hobbit-hole staring up at them—wondering what shapes the others might see in the night sky, if they told star-stories of the constellations to their young as hobbits did, and if so, what tales of love or glory the stars might hold. Or maybe they told mountain-stories instead. She'd never asked, thinking there'd be time for that later, and had only allowed herself to wonder in the dark reaches of the night, when she couldn't seem to bring herself to sleep.

She'd had plenty of time to wonder, these last weeks. She hadn't been sleeping well for a long time now—not since Beorn's house, or perhaps even before. In the Mirkwood her dreams had been full of strange, twisting, monstrous things, and she had gotten only a few snatched hours of sleep here and there between the attack of the spiders and Smaug's defeat. After, trapped by Thorin's tight-fingered madness, she'd laid awake in the treasure hall, watching him comb through the piles of gold with one eye ever cast her direction, the ache in her chest a living thing. And when the battle was done, it had been as if all her fear and grief came home to roost, and she'd cried herself to sleep every night, feeling like nothing so much as an animal in a trap.

No, she was no stranger to sleepless nights. Not anymore.

"Lord Bard bids you welcome," the guard said, returning with a grumbling stamp of feet, "and asks if you need supper brought first."

"No, thank you," said she, because discourtesy was always best met with courtesy of her own, "I can see him immediately, if he's ready."

"He said he thought you'd say that," the guard sighed, and led her in.

Bard's office was in no better shape than anything else in the city of Dale, which was to say that it was far grander than anything back home, for all the floor was half-rotten and the ceiling missing a few stones. Bard looked up from his desk when the guard showed her in, a wary sort of blankness on his face that she was sure was a mirror to her own.

"Leave us," he told the guard, and then, almost as an afterthought, "and please shut the door behind you."

The guard complied, with a final quiet mutter that seemed to imply he didn't know what his lordship was doing with such a small shabby person, no he did not, and at last Bree was left alone with the Lord of the Dale. He studied her in silence, his keen gaze as sharp as ever, until she was near to squirming under the attention, courtesy and cowardice keeping her from speaking before he was ready.

"I didn't think to see you again," he said, finally. "Though I'm glad you came. I wanted to apologize for yesterday."

"Yes, well," said Bree, who'd said worse to Thorin when she _wasn't_ trying to offend and wouldn't know what to do with his apology besides, "it's all water under the bridge, isn't it? And anyway, I brought you these," and she dumped the papers onto his desk before he could say anything else.

He picked up the top of the stack and studied it with the same thoughtful intent he did everything. "What's this?" 

"Everything I can remember about foursquare planting," she said, and rushed on when that keen gaze shifted to her. "I've never run a farm myself, you understand, you'd be better off with help from a Gamgee or one of the Belfasts down the Hill, but I've read no small amount on the subject and I've picked up quite a bit during my rambles."

"I told you, it's better than anything else we have," Bard said carefully, as if afraid she might bolt. "We'll welcome any help you can give."

Truth be told, she did feel a bit like bolting, though she'd ever admit as much. "You'll need to start with a cover crop," she told him, ignoring the alarmingly penetrating gaze still fixed on her face. "I'd recommend lucerne—alfalfa, your people like call it; I saw it growing on the long shore of the lake and you wouldn't have to send away for the seeds. You want to sow the ground before the week is out, so it will have time to sprout before the winter snows start. When the spring comes you can till it straight back into the earth, and the ground will take crops again. It will take a few years before it's hearty again, and you'll have to be careful about what you plant—it's all in there, though some of the plants might not grow so far from the Shire, I wrote down some alternatives if that's the case. It'll be costly to get such a large store of seeds by spring," she apologized, "but the dwarves could carry it across the mountains for you, if you send away soon, and I think they'd be willing since it's their bellies you'll be filling as well. It's- well, it's all in there," she said, gesturing to the papers, and fell confusedly silent, her ramble concluded with still no word from Bard.

He took a moment to leaf through the pages, dark eyes flicking over the words with a scholar's quickness. It hadn't occurred to her to worry until just then that he wouldn't be able to read, though in her experience many among the Big Folk could not, unless they were raised to a lord's house, which Bard hadn't been, quite. But he'd clearly learned somewhere, and after a minute he set the papers down again, shuffling them back into a tidy stack with a few deft gestures and folding his hands on top.

"You didn't have to do this, you know," he told her. "I didn't expect- Well, I didn't have any right to ask what I did, and this is more than I could have wished."

"Yes, well." She gives a small, confused gesture, a flutter of her hands before they drop awkwardly to her sides once more. "I had the time."

"Still." Bard's gaze sliced over her. "For the sake of the debt between us, I thank you."

_Oh,_ if only he hadn't said such things, this might yet have been a painless parting. The cruelty if it stabbed at her—but it was, after all, no less than she deserved, so she merely stiffened her spine and nodded as regally as she could, pretending she was speaking to cousin Lobelia in the market. "That's very kind of you, my Lord," she said, with all the dusty courtesy she could muster, "but it was the very least I could do."

"The very least you could do was nothing," he said, and she swallowed hard against the bitter truth of that.

"Well," she said again, and bowed, abruptly but deep. "Farewell, Lord Bard. And best of luck with… all this."

"And to you on your travels," he said, appropriately solemn, and she nodded sharply before taking her leave.

Only to storm back in moments later, shutting the door once more behind her with a _bang._ Bard gawped back at her, a very un-lordly confusion slackening his tired face. "Bree…?"

"What were you _thinking,_ " she demanded, waving her arms, "asking me to stay? What foolishness crossed your mind to make such an offer? You, of all people?"

"Me?" he said, stupidly, and she pushed her hair back from her face with a frustrated growl.

"I know I've wronged you but I thought such torment beneath you, truly I did. Did you want me to get on my knees and beg forgiveness? I would, if that's what's needed, but I know we'll enough it won't bring them back." She looked away, fighting down stupid, useless tears that did her no credit. "Believe me, no one knows that better than I."

The confusion started to clear, leaving only astonishment in its wake. "Bree, are you-"

"Am I _what?_ " She glared back at him, mutely furious for all it's none of his fault. "Sorry enough? Aye, I'm sorry enough for ten men or more, but that doesn't balance the scale, does it? Not with hundreds of lives on the other end. I know, all right? I _know._ "

"Never tell me you're speaking of the _dragon,_ " Bard said, and now it was her turn to gape.

"Well, what else could I mean?"

"Bree, that was never your fault," Bard said, gentleness stealing into his face and voice. "Surely you know we never blamed you for Smaug."

The unfairness of it stole her breath. "Well, maybe you should!" She turned her back, unable to bear the kindness in his eyes for a moment longer. "It was I who woke him, and well you know it. Burglar, ha! As if any burglar could steal a crown from a dragon's hoard. You warned me, before I left; you warned us all, and we didn't listen. I woke the wyrm and then I riddled with him, to stay off my death—barrel-rider, I named myself, for our flight from Mirkwood, and for that he turned his flame on your home and your people, and not a single damned thing could we do to stop him."

She fell quiet at last, the rush of words finished, and the sound of her panting breaths was loud in the silence of the room. And then:

"You riddled with a dragon?" Bard asked mildly.

She gave a short moan of frustration and spun around. "Bard-"

"Aye, that's my name, for all you've been determined not to use it." She stared back at him in mute confusion, and he sighed, leaned forward and scrubbed his palms over his face. She eyed the exhaustion written in the line of his shoulders and felt the dual pinch of pity and guilt, for surely he didn't need such a quarrel now on top of everything else, but he looked back up to her before she could think of something else to say. "Did you truly think I blamed you for that?"

"How could you not?" she said, and even to her own ears her voice was small. "I woke him. It was me."

"Do you think it would have been different if you hadn't been there?" Bard inquired. "Would your friends have, perhaps, gone to the hoard with a lighter step—dwarven warriors, with their heavy boots and loud voices? Would they have left him to his slumber?"

"Well, no," she floundered, "but-"

"And do you think, once woken, that his wrath wouldn't have turned on us? The Master, in his _infinite_ wisdom, dressed your company in human armor and human blades—do you think the wyrm wouldn't have cast his blame on us, for the aid? He destroyed the Dales in my father's day merely for the crime of being _near_ the mountain. This would always have been a greater trespass."

"But-" she said again, but Bard was picking up speed now, like a stone rolling down a hill.

"Nothing you did, or could have done, would have stopped Smaug, save a blade between King Thorin's shoulders, and given Azog's best efforts this moon, I can't say that would have done much good, either!"

Her hands clenched into fists at her sides, and for a single, terrible moment, she thought that if he'd been closer she might have lost her sense and struck him.

His gaze flickered down, and regret flashed across his face. "Forgive me. That was unacceptable of me—and unworthy of you."

She forced her fingers to uncurl. "It's alright. I can't blame you for your feelings." _Even if I don't share them,_ went unspoken between them.

He let out a short, sharp sigh. "However poorly said, my point remains the same. Laketown's doom was writ the moment he set foot on Erebor's slopes—and do you think there is any power, on this earth or any other, that would have kept your king from the mountain?"

"Thorin's no king of mine-"

"Bree."

She sighed and looked away. "No. If you hadn't taken him into town, he would have gone on foot. And-" _Be honest, to yourself if no one else._ "And if he hadn't been able to walk, he would have crawled," she admitted, the truth of it bitter in her throat. "I can't even say it was the dragon-sickness that had him in its hold, at least then. His honor demanded it, and nothing would stand in his way."

"There you are, then," Bard said. "The dragon would have woken with our without you, Bryony Baggins—which makes its deeds no fault of yours."

She stared at him, but he seemed, incredibly hard as it was to believe, entirely serious. "Oh."

He tilted his head to the side, his smile somewhere between amused and exhausted. "Did you truly think I blamed you for it?"

"Oh lord, Bard," she groaned, " _I_ blamed me. How could I think anyone else didn't?" She sighed and scuffed her bare foot against the splintery wooden floor, then looked up sharply as something occurred to her. "Wait. Does that mean you were _serious_ with your offer to stay?"

Bard boggled back at her in turn. "Did you think I _wasn't_?"

"I thought… I thought it a taunt," she faltered. "A reminder of how much I owed you—owed everyone—after bringing the dragon down on your heads."

Bard pinched the bridge his nose. "You owe us nothing," her told her, oh-so-patiently. "A fourteenth share of dwarven gold will be enough for us to rebuild, here in the Dale—enough and then some to fill our bellies this winter and send the trade-barges down the river come spring. However you got your king to uphold your bargain, the Dale of old will live again because of it."

She'd known Bard had returned the Arkenstone to Fili, after the battle was done; she hadn't realized his uncle had agreed to grant her share of gold to the Dale for its return. She should have known. Ever aware of the demands of his honor, was Thorin Oakenshield—at least when his heart was clear of the dragon's greed.

"He's not my king," she says, likely a beat too late, "and I had nothing to do with that. I haven't even _seen_ Thorin since- Well."

"If you say so," Bard said dubiously. "By any measure, however, it was your bargain that brought us here, and your rightful share we take for the rebuilding of our homes. I know you didn't do it for our sake," he added, before she could argue further. "But the fact remains, that the only debt between us is the one _we_ owe to _you._ I offered a position among us not as a shackle, services unwillingly taken for payment yet owed, but as an honor, a pride of place among a people who will love you for it." He shrugged, abruptly exhausted. "You spoke often enough of your farms, that morning on the lake."

"Not- mine," she said faintly. "I've never worked on anything larger than the vegetable garden outside my kitchen window. I could never work on a _farm,_ dear me, no. A Baggins, of Bag-End? Imagine the scandal."

Bard ran his hands through his hair—disordered, Bree could tell, from many such gestures—and peered at her quite keenly. "Do you _want_ to?" he said, after a moment.

"Oh, I-" She thought wildly of her little hobbit-hole with its familiar green door, likely still scratched with Gandalf's impertinent symbol, of her kitchen with her father's sturdy iron cook-pots and her mother's Westfarthing crockery, returned to their cabinets by careful dwarven hands. Her sturdy oaken tables, still likely bearing the print of Fili's boot-heels in the surface, her empty pantry and dusty shelves. "I-"

Her little garden plot, the finest in all the Shire, the closest a Baggins could ever come to owning a farm and still be called respectable. Her books and her armchair, the last wish Thorin had given her on his deathbed. The empty sweep of green next to the garden gate, where she'd plant her acorn so that when she was old, and tired, and her hands were too swollen with age to dig into the earth, she'd sleep under the shade of the oaken branches and dream of her adventures, of great deeds and greater friends. Of the King Under the Mountain, and the root he'd taken in her heart.

She was so unmoored, so desperate to put down roots—but even the thought of riding all the way home to her own familiar door was suddenly unbearable. For what? In the Shire she would be wealthy, and respected, and comfortable. She'd be Eccentric once more—maybe even Odd, gone as long as she had. People would listen to her stories and she'd work in her small garden, and she'd never again have such a chance as this, to dig her hands into the black earth of the Dale and make it green again.

Hadn't she told Gandalf, those long months ago, how she'd sought for years for a place to make her mark? She could make a difference here. All of her best efforts in Erebor had led to nothing but strife, and war, and death. She hadn't saved Thorin, not from his madness and not from the Pale Orc—he'd done both of those himself in the end, and she'd done little but bear witness. She hadn't saved her Company, and she hadn't saved the men of Laketown. She hadn't saved any of them. War came to their doors, and there was naught that one small hobbit could do to change any of it.

But she could plant good crops that would grow strong and tall, and she could cook good food that would fill bellies and warm hearts. She longed for the Shire till she was sick for it, but… Couldn't she make a piece of the Shire here, instead? She couldn't go home to her books and her chair and her garden, as Thorin had wanted for her on his deathbed; couldn't settle into her old life as if she hadn't been hollowed out by grief and love and hardship all alike. But she could build a new one here—if she was brave enough to try.

Wouldn't it be so freeing, to create something good in the shadow of the Lonely Mountain?

Slowly, she lifted her gaze to meet his.

" _Could_ I?"

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

She made her farewells to Gandalf before dawn the next day, and many tears were shed on both sides, though the wizard would later claim, with some haughtiness, that no such thing had occurred. He seemed rather less surprised at the suddenness of their parting than she might have expected, however, and she eyed him narrowly, with a well-earned measure of suspicion.

"You knew, you old fraud," she told him, when the twinkle in his eye became too clear for even her generous heart to ignore, and he laughed through the last of his tears, wiping them away from his beard.

"I hoped," he corrected. "I think this land needs you almost as much as you need it, Bryony Baggins. It will do your heart good."

"Isn't that what you said about adventure, all those months ago in my little hobbit-hole?"

"Yes, well." A wizard wouldn't lower _quite_ themselves to look discomfited, in Bree's experience, but Gandalf made a face not unlike a cat who had just gone outside and was considering whether or not it wanted back in the door. "It all worked out in the end, did it not?"

Bree turned her head to look across the lake, where a lazy tower of smoke rises from the top of the mountain and curls away into the sky. It took nearly a full day to stoke the fires back to full after the battle, even with the help of Dain's soldiers, and Bree had spent it hanging in a little cart over the chasm, shouting directions to the runners until her throat was hoarse and no more than a croak would emerge. Dwalin had to lift her out of her perch when the task was done, as she'd been too dizzy to stand—and then his injured leg had given way, and they'd _both_ nearly gone over the edge together. Balin had found the pair of them some minutes later, still clinging together and giggling from a combination of shock and sheer, punchy exhaustion, and Bree shortly thereafter found herself on the receiving end of a tongue-lashing from the _both_ of them when it'd been discovered she hadn't yet been to the healing-tents, save to visit the others. She'd been chivvied down to the kitchens and into Fili and Kili's tender mercies, and been fed cup after cup of strong dwarven tea and plates of honey-bread until she was full nearly to bursting. They'd stayed there late into the night, watching Bombur make pie after roast after stew, and one by one the others trickled in to join them, Bifur and Bofur sleepily whittling little toys for Laketown children while Ori added sums in the guttering candle-light and Nori sharpened their blades at their feet. In those quiet hours, she'd almost been able to believe that she'd find a way to make a home there, to bring life back to the dead halls.

Almost.

"I suppose it did, at that," she said, and sighed to hear the wistful longing in her own voice. _In another life, perhaps,_ she told herself firmly, and found a smile for Gandalf, standing watchfully above her. "What would you have done, I wonder, if I hadn't gone to Bard myself?"

"Brought him to you, of course," Gandalf said, not at all discomposed by her teasing, "and if that failed, then I would tell you a raven came down from the mountain yesterday, and give you these."

From his pocket he drew a bunch of parchment, tied together with sturdy practical baling-twine and done up with a square dwarvish knot she'd seen a hundred times in at the front of traveling-packs and at the tops of boot-laces, and she took it with a laugh that was half a sob. If Gandalf noticed the shaking in her fingers as she undid the twine, well, wizards often observe a great deal more than they tell, and there's no one finer to keep a secret.

She paged through quickly, and found her name written, and in some cases _badly_ misspelled, on the front of most every letter in the stack. There was Ori's beautiful penmanship, the envy of any scribe in the Downs; there Balin's careful, slanted letters. There was Dwalin's blocky scrawl and Kili's cramped scribbles and Bofur's cheerfully illegible chicken scratchings. Her Company. Her _friends._

And there, at the bottom, in a heavy vellum so fine she was almost afeared to touch it with her grubby fingers, was one that had no name on the front—only a wax seal, stamped with a symbol she'd seen only once before, in a broken throne above Thorin's head.

She folded it open with trembling fingers, her breath caught in her throat. Inside, done in the hand of a master draftsman, was a drawing of the gates of Erebor. But not as Bree had ever seen them, broken and battered, scorched from the dragon's flame. No, this was Erebor rebuilt, reborn into all its finery, a towering sprawl of stone and steel great enough to strike awe into any man's heart. Above the battlements hung the flag of the King Under the Mountain, returned to home at last, and below, on either side of the gates, grew a cluster of great oak trees, tall and strong enough to match even the might of the mountain, sprouting from the black Dalish earth where no tree dared sprout for long years.

And there, beneath the tallest of the trees, so small she had to squint to make sure she was seeing aright, were two small figures, seated side-by-side under the shade of the branches. One of them was broad of shoulder and thick of beard, dressed in dwarvish finery with a sword belted at his waist. The other was a maid of slight build, with a bare chin and a simple country dress, long hair twisted into a single long plait draped over her shoulder and down across her breast.

Across the top, in a dark, heavy hand she'd seen only once, in a name fixed across from hers in a contract she only barely glanced at before signing, it said: **UNTIL THE END.**

_Plant your trees,_ he'd told her, with his last labored breaths. _Watch them grow._ And she'd held his cold hand tightly in hers, as if she could cling to his life by naught but the force of her grip, and she'd said, _I would have planted them at Erebor's gates. I would have tended them until the very end._

He remembered.

He _remembered._

"Did you think he did not care?" inquired Gandalf quietly, leaning on his staff. "Dwarves give their hearts only the once."

"So I've been told." She ran the pads of her fingers over the drawing, the stonework done in the hand of a master draftsman, and the less skilled but no less heartfelt tree with its bounty beneath. One forefinger, scratched and calloused from her travels, lingered over the bearded figure. "We never spoke of it, not really. There was always the dragon, and our lives were… very different. And when he didn't send for me, I thought…"

Gandalf gave a quiet _harumph._ "Thorin has his pride, as you should know better than most, Bryony Baggins." His tone was chiding, but the twinkle was back in his eye. "A more stubborn old fool you'll never find, and those are his _good_ qualities."

A laugh burst out of her, all unwilling, and she felt the tears burn at her eyes once more, staring at the drawing. Thorin's drawing. For her.

And then Gandalf bent his head, to peer quite as closely into her eyes as can be done between one very tall wizard and one very small hobbit. "But he is steadfast," Gandalf said seriously. "And he is honorable. And if you'll forgive one last bit of meddling from an old friend, I would say that he loves you very much."

She'd never doubted that, oddly enough, though a more sensible hobbit would never have thought such a thing. They'd not often had room for kind words between the two of them, quarrelling more often than not—but she'd brought a smile to his lips as often as a scowl, most days, which was a feat even his kin couldn't claim. And she'd earned his trust, a feat both sweeter and more costly than any gentler part of his heart. Of course he'd loved her. What else could it be?

But Thorin had his honor, too, and she'd known well enough that had always come first. She hadn't minded. Living for love was all very fine and romantic in the storybooks, until you die of the loss of it, as her mother had done. Bree might have been the only and best beloved daughter of Belladonna Took, but she was a Baggins, too, and had practicality bred into her bones alongside her mother's wild Tookish heart. She'd seen the end before the start, and she'd gone in with her eyes wide open. Love didn't a happy ending make. Living it did.

Even before the dragon, before Thorin's madness and her betrayal and the near brush of death on Erebor's ramparts—even before all of that, when it was just her and thirteen dwarves on the road to Erebor, she'd never really thought Thorin would want to live it with her.

"I suppose he does, at that," she said, full of a queer golden wonderment. _Until the end._ Well. How about that? "Can you send something to the mountain in return, before you leave?"

"You can send it yourself," Gandalf grumped, "with no need of me as go-between," but when she merely looked at him expectantly, he sighed and held out his hand. "You always were a stubborn child."

She smiled and slid her hand into her pocket. Her fingers ghosted over the now-familiar curve of the ring, and it caught against her hard-earned riding callouses for a moment—almost, she thought whimsically, as if it didn't want to be forgotten. Then it fell away, and her seeking fingers fetched up against the rough cap of the acorn, larger than any to be found in the Shire.

"Here," she said, and deposited it in Gandalf's waiting palm. "Send him this."

Gandalf ducked his head to peer at her from beneath his brows, his dark eyes seeking in a way only a wizard's could be. "No message?"

Bree shook her head. "He'll know what it means."

"Hmph," he said, but tucked it away in his robes, with as much care as he'd show any jewel from Erebor's hoard. Greater, perhaps, as wizards have no need of gold or gems, but her small seed was a gift from her heart, and from the softness around his mouth, he knew it well. "Very well, it will be sent to the mountain. For your sake, I hope he receives it well."

"I hope so too," she said, and stuck her hands back in her pockets, something small and soft tucked into in the right. "Good luck on your journeys, Gandalf—and may they bring you to my door again someday."

"Luck, bah," he muttered, but he looked much-moved by her comment nonetheless. "I suppose they might, at that. Great things are about in this world, Bryony Baggins, great things indeed. And somehow, I don't think your tale is quite as finished as all that."

"Maybe," she said, "maybe not." The ring bumped fretfully against her knuckles, and she gave it a soothing rub with her thumb. "Either way, tea is at four, and you needn't knock. To you, the door is always open."

"Until then, dear hobbit," he said, and took himself away in a great whirl of his robes. She stood at the edge of the city and watched him go, until his form grew small and indistinct in the distance, and then, and only then, did she look down to the object he'd slipped into her palm in return.

It was a pouch of pipe-tobacco, handsome leather with a familiar Shire stamp on the bottom. She pressed her hand to her mouth, not sure if she was stifling laughter or tears, and then reached into the pocket of her coat, and drew out her pipe.

She hoisted herself up onto a handy bit of broken rock, and smoked her way through the dawn, watching the sun rise over the Lonely Mountain and listening to the sounds of the city coming back to life. It'd be a long road, bringing green back to the Dale at last. The work of a lifetime, toiling away in Erebor's shadow.

She was rather looking forward to it.

**Author's Note:**

> "Bryony" is a very old-fashioned English name that comes from a variety of flowering vine that grows wild as far north as Yorkshire. Much like belladonna, bryony can be used in herbal medicine, but is generally high toxic if ingested. It seemed appropriate. Gandalf's pronunciation (brigh-oh-nee) is the correct one, but I always thought hobbits would say certain things rather more casually, and thus "Bree" was born.
> 
> The style of planting Bree calls "foursquare" is a type of companion planting called "Three Sisters" agriculture, traditional to a lot of Native American cultures. Essentially, it includes corn as a grain crop, climbing beans that can use the cornstalks for structure and put nitrogen back into the soil, and some sort of squash, which covers the ground well enough to discourage weeds, drives off predatory insects, and trap moisture in the soil. Sometimes a flowering plant designed to draw bees is added to the mix as a "fourth" sister, referenced here. All three together provide pretty much all the most important nutrients, and gives a lot of output from a relatively small area. The concept can be scaled down to a kitchen garden or up to production farming, which seemed appropriate for the themes of the story.
> 
> I tried to keep any mentions of dates and travel times vague, but any that are referenced here are approximate. I spent a lot of time hunched over Dwarrow Scholar references and 2014 calendars and cursing when I tried to put together a timeline that would a) get them from Rivendell to Erebor in four months, and b) make SOME kind of sense with the way they showed things in the movie. It was, let's just say, something of a losing effort. And obviously not something anyone _else_ bothered with when they wrote the script. Ahem.
> 
> The concept of Bree's Eccentricity was inspired by [this excellent essay](http://the-toast.net/2014/12/03/fictional-spinster-classification-index/) about Spinsters from the fabulous Mallory Ortberg. I'd always imagined Bree exactly as she is—mouthy, stubborn, overly inclined to bicker and loyal to a fault—but that essay helped shape the way I wanted to put her into words.
> 
> I considered whether or not to tag Thorin as a character in this, seeing as how he's Sir-Not-Appearing-In-This-Fic, but ultimately it only seemed appropriate. Thorin was the warp and weft of this, after all, even if he never actually got around to showing up. I've always thought that any relationship worthy of song or story should leave its mark on its participants, for better or worse, and I hope that I portrayed Thorin's marks on her even half as clearly as they appeared in my head.
> 
> Some of my musical inspiration, if anyone is interested in that sort of thing:  
> -[This is Everything](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5v1R7zz_0s), Tegan and Sara  
> -[Miracle Mile](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq3mLvnBcTo), Cold War Kids  
> -[We Won't Run](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5RtLfE7K6Q), Sara Blasko
> 
> I'm [sorrelchestnut over on tumblr](http://sorrelchestnut.tumblr.com/), come by and say hi whenever!


End file.
